A major source of inaccuracy when shooting an arrow with a bow is the instability of the bow position as it is held by the archer. In the prior art, there are numerous examples of devices intended to mitigate this instability. Examples include U.S. Pat. No. 3,196,860 (Hoyt), U.S. Pat. No. 3,752,142 (Morita), U.S. Pat. No. 3,804,072 (Izuta), U.S. Pat. No. 4,054,121(Hoyt), and U.S. Pat. No. 4,982,719 (Haggard). As a specific case, Hoyt (U.S. Pat. No. 3,196,860) describes a device having rods with weighting elements with the rods mounted in various orientations on the bow. Morita, Izuta, and Hoyt (U.S. Pat. No. 4,054,121) further describe similar devices with various orientations of the rods and weights. There are also devices similar to that described by Haggard which incorporate a flexible element. Such flexible elements ostensibly serve the purpose of absorbing vibrations.
The present inventor has recognized many fundamental issues that must be addressed to obtain high performance from a stabilizing device. Those issues are:
a). Stabilization of the bow is best achieved by maximizing the rotational inertia afforded by the stabilizing device.
b). The rotational inertia of the stabilizing device may be increased both by lengthening the device and increasing its mass.
c). For the given inertia provided by the stabilizer, that mass must be minimized in order to minimize the load supported by the archer.
d). Practical considerations such as ease of use and transportation or the rules of competitive archery limit the allowable length of the stabilizing device. Within such length limitations, the inertia of the stabilizer must be maximized in order to provide the best performance.
e). In order to best stabilize the bow, and especially at the moment the arrow is released, the stabilizer must be rigidly coupled to the bow.